A competition of Sponsors or High Schools?

[IVIaxor]

I don't have a problem with the sponsor's name coming first, this way the last thing you hear, aside from the team name, is the high school. Anyway, noone is going to remember the high school's name, it is much more practical for a team to be recognized by their number and team name.

On the alternate topic of this thread: last year we were a rookie team working with the University of Washington, and we had a little bit of a problem with high school involvement. This year thing are looking much better, but what I really want to reant about is the difficulty of working with a college. There is almost 100% turnover in the college student mentor group, so the question arises, who is mentoring who. Oh well, I guess we will see how it goes..

[Katie Reynolds]

You've got to keep in mind that (usually) it is the sponsor that is putting out the big bucks for a team to be able to function. And as someone said before, some schools have a bunch of high schools involved with one team. We just incorporated the high schools involved with our team into our team name (N.E.W. = Appleton North, Appleton East, Appleton West.)

Rbayer - I completely agree. It really irks me when I see engineers working on the robots in the pits and whatever - not because I don't think they should be involved, but because I feel it's a better learning experience for the kids to actually be able to do something, and work on the robot than to stand around and say "Oh, cool. Look at what my engineer is doing." That's why I love our engineers. In the pits, and especially during the build season, if we need to build or fix something, our engineers step back and say, "get to it," rather than saying "oh, ok - watch me while I fix the problem." If a kid can be inspired by just standing around and watching an engineer work, that's fine - but I really think they are missing out on a lot of the experience of being in FIRST if they just sit back and polish wheels or something.

All in all, I don't think 'sponsor before school thing' is a huge deal. Just because the sponsor's name comes first doesn't't mean that the students don't do any work. How you can even deduce that just from how the team is announced at a competition is beyond me.

- Katie

[Matt Reiland]

Originally posted by Katie Reynolds


Rbayer - I completely agree. It really irks me when I see engineers working on the robots in the pits and whatever - not because I don't think they should be involved, but because I feel it's a better learning experience for the kids to actually be able to do something, and work on the robot than to stand around and say "Oh, cool. Look at what my engineer is doing." That's why I love our engineers. In the pits, and especially during the build season, if we need to build or fix something, our engineers step back and say, "get to it," rather than saying "oh, ok - watch me while I fix the problem." If a kid can be inspired by just standing around and watching an engineer work, that's fine - but I really think they are missing out on a lot of the experience of being in FIRST if they just sit back and polish wheels or something.

- Katie

This same subject comes up every year like clockwork, taking the view that the students should be doing all of the work also requires that you have a group of students who are capable and willing to do the work. On our team, as well as on many other teams there is a group that is hands on that wants to fix, and build parts for the robot then there are others who would rather walk around and watch the event. If a team has all students working on the robot, great, all engineers, hey that's their deal also great. I still stand to my feeling that FIRST isn't about creating a team of machinists and welders, you don't have to wrench on bolts to be excited or 'inspired' to go into engineering. In fact as an engineer my job NEVER requires that I machine anything or assemble anything.

Ohhh well this thread should have 100 more posts going either way before the kickoff

[D. Gregory]

My team's robot is pretty much done completely by students. We get a bit of help from former team members but they just contribute a few ideas and give us advice as we need it. We also have some teacher support but they ususally just supervise us. In our pit you will see students doing all the work.

[Jim Giacchi]

I do not think that most of the companies that donate money to a robotics program do it for the name recognition. Do companies like Johnsons & Johnson really need to build name recognition? When i look at the names i personally am more concerned with the school that its from rather than the company that gives them money.

Of course, this is coming from a guy whose on a team that hasn't seen a sponsor or an engineer in over two years, so...

[Chris Nowak]

I really think its pretty much arbitrary...It doesn't really matter that the corporations get their names announced first, if the High Schools were announced first its not like it would really change anything.

Also, I'm sure that the motivation for many corporations is name recognition. The engineers and people involved might not care about the companies name being up their, but the people who justify the amount of money being put into the program probably do. So, I think its a good thing to show those people how important the sponsors are and how much good publicity it is. I think it comes down to that we should make every effort to try to make the sponsors feel good so we can attract more of them, cuz more sponsors means more teams involved means more kids who can get this wonderful experience. Theres really no reason we shouldnt do it, is what Im saying.

[157#1Driver]

I agree with Chris. I think the sponsors care more about what FIRST is all about than getting their name shown on a FIRST score board. If it was the other way around, think of it, it would be like the Bud Light Boston Bruins, or the adidas NFL.

[Andrew]

When I first pitched a FIRST program to my administration, I was told in no uncertain terms that there were strings attached to using my sponsor's name. (In this case, top billing.) For those teams that have NASA sponsorship, top billing is also an issue.

You will probably find that many sponsors have expectations about how their team behaves and performs at competitions. The team is a reflection of the sponsor (as well as the high school) and usually the sponsor has a vested interest in that reflection being positive.

I don't want to belittle the importance that high schools play in the competition. However, usually, the sponsor is performing the service and the high school is the one being served. In that respect, it seems reasonable to throw the poor sponsor a bone.

Andrew
Team 356

[Gadget470]

you don't have to wrench on bolts to be excited or 'inspired' to go into engineering.

From a different angle, the topic "A competition of Sponsors or High Schools?" could also be about what you brought up. Students should be the one building this because it's their project. Too many teams show up just to drive what their engineers built.

The competition is for High Schools not their sponsors. FIRST isn't a competition of sponsors, the intention I won't believe is to have all teams with big name sponsors that can build a robot for the kids. Note "for the kids," not by the kids. I don't think who goes first in announcement matters at all, I assume that is up to the team and sponsor, they submit the information that gets read off before matches.

Sponsors getting top billing in just their name isn't a bad thing, but building a robot for the kids when they do little or no work on it is bad. You can't learn by osmosis in something like FIRST.

Yes, Matt Reiland, it's true not all engineers need to machine things, but the build process is a mechanical engineering program and I'm pretty sure Mech. Eng's need to machine and assemble things.

[meaubry]

Gadget,
Yes - Engineers do turn wrenches - but that and your comments are "off topic" - the topic of this thread is about "whom gets top billing (name is listed first)", so before this thread turns into the annual debate about which way is better or "who builds the robot"?
I suggest not going there, because that debate is circular and unending - I've seen it, read it, and participated in it for 7 years now.
We are all 1 week away from one of the most exciting and invigorating 6 week time periods, that most people involved will have an opportunity to participate in. This upcoming 6 weeks of work, sweat, thinking, designing, building, talking, discussing, turning wrenches, wiring, programming, drawing on chalk boards, eating pizza, drinking mountain dew, with the students - is what the FIRST experience is really about. Some teams are more fortunate than others (and that depends on how you look at it I suppose) in that the experience, is shared with Educators, Engineers, Parents, Mentors, Friends, and other Students. Some teams are not, but that doesn't mean that the experience isn't a valuable and important one to them.
Frankly. I really don't care who gets listed first or last. That, in my humble opinion, is as trivial as who builds the robot -- I hope everyone gets to experience something very very special this season.
Good Luck to all, enjoy the ride!

[Mike Soukup]

As Mike said, who does what work on the robot is off-topic in this thread. Since this topic comes up so much, go back and read some of the thorough discussions on student vs engineer built robots: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...?threadid=2648 and http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&threadid=2296 plus more if you search hard

After reading those, if you want to continue the discussion start a new thread, but expect it to get heated

Mike

[Gadget470]

as stated in the beginning of my post, I was refering to the topic itself not the subject matter.

[dlavery]

Originally posted by Andrew
When I first pitched a FIRST program to my administration, I was told in no uncertain terms that there were strings attached to using my sponsor's name. (In this case, top billing.) For those teams that have NASA sponsorship, top billing is also an issue.

Without getting into the areas of discussion in the rest of this thread, I do need to correct one item in this quote. NASA does NOT require top billing in the names of teams that receive grants.

The very first requirement listed in the grant application is that NASA must be listed as one of the team sponsors, but other sponsors can be listed before or after NASA, as appropriate (as determined by the team). We believe that it is appropriate to list NASA as one of the team sponsors, since the awarded teams are receiving $6000 from NASA, but we also recognize that teams will have additional sponsors that may be contributing more funds or support to the teams (in fact, one of the purposes of the grants is to help rookie teams get "breathing room" to allow them to bring in long-term sponsorship while they are building their first robots). If the team determines that it is appropriate to list other organizations with "top billing" based on their support, that is fine with us.

We just want to be clear about what is, and is not, expected by the teams that are receiving NASA funds. There is at least one case in past years where a team turned down a grant award because they did not completely read the grant application forms and had the same misunderstanding noted about about how the NASA sponsorship should be recognized.

If your team has received a NASA grant, and been told anything different than this, your source of information is incorrect.

-dave

[Alexander McGee]

id say GM deserves to be announced beofre our school. that and we have kids from 13 different schools. hahah, so i guess nevermind

[Andrew]

The very first requirement listed in the grant application is that NASA must be listed as one of the team sponsors, but other sponsors can be listed before or after NASA, as appropriate (as determined by the team). We believe that it is appropriate to list NASA as one of the team sponsors, since the awarded teams are receiving $6000 from NASA, but we also recognize that teams will have additional sponsors that may be contributing more funds or support to the teams (in fact, one of the purposes of the grants is to help rookie teams get "breathing room" to allow them to bring in long-term sponsorship while they are building their first robots). If the team determines that it is appropriate to list other organizations with "top billing" based on their support, that is fine with us.

We just want to be clear about what is, and is not, expected by the teams that are receiving NASA funds. There is at least one case in past years where a team turned down a grant award because they did not completely read the grant application forms and had the same misunderstanding noted about about how the NASA sponsorship should be recognized.

If your team has received a NASA grant, and been told anything different than this, your source of information is incorrect.

-dave

I want to apologize to Dave and to NASA for my loose wording of my earlier post.

However, when FIRST enters the information in TIMS for NASA sponsorship, it puts the NASA center first. This is a FIRST thing, not a NASA thing.

Andrew
Team 356